Effect of niobium doping on the densification and grain growth in alumina

The effect of niobium doping on the densification and grain growth of nano-sized α-Al2O3 powders during sintering has been investigated. The dopant concentration added ranged from 0.1 to 0.5 mol%. It was observed that addition of niobium oxide could improve the densification of the pure alumina with a lower sintering temperature, a shorter sintering time. The effect is strengthened by increasing the amount of dopant. It also demonstrated that niobium dopant significantly promotes the grain growth of alumina during sintering and the grain size of alumina increases with increasing the amount of dopant in the added range.